In 1970, the Laff-in-the-Dark ride was dark, literally.
Cliff Johnson, a local 17-year-old from Bristol Eastern High
School, convinced the Nortons to commission ten monsters,
which he would make for $1,000.

Here in Cliff’s own words, is what transpired:

“As
a kid, it always bothered me that our Laff In
The Dark was increasingly becoming all dark
with no laffs. After I visited Disneyland for
the first time, I fancied myself a young Walt
Disney and got it into my head that I would
turn our Laff into the Haunted Mansion. Ah,
youth.

“I received permission to go into the Laff and
my high school sweetie and I measured the dimensions, position of the cages, and the track layout.
I went home and built a cardboard scale model
of the ride. She drew some illustrations. The
next thing I know this 16-year-old kid is proposing
to build ten monsters for $1,000 at a board
meeting of the Norton family. Mysteriously,
they agreed to let me loose inside the ride.

“The ‘we’ was the cast and crew of my Super 8
feature film in progress, ‘The Return of the
Freshman.’ We used wood, wire from coat hangers,
and steel mesh to form the body shapes and then
layered them with “plaster tape.” similar to
that used for making a cast for a broken leg
except this was designed for the hobbyist at
a bargain price. We spray painted the monsters
with oil paints and mounted them inside the
existing ten empty cages. I believe with two
or three more original monsters only left.

“I didn’t want to use the ugly steel grills over
the monsters originally installed in the 50’s
and I thought of plexiglass, but discovered that
it could shatter. Then I came across something
called polycarbonate that the hardware guy demonstrated
by taking a hammer to it and battering it. It
did not shatter. So all the monsters were sealed
with polycarbonate, and I used the $1,000 to
fund the completion of my film. ‘Stretch’ Norton
became Mayor of Bristol and had a cameo in the
film, gawking up at a flying saucer over City
Hall.”